outrunning karma

Cruelty comes easily to him, no matter how much he tries to deny this facet of himself. Which absentee parent did he inherit the gnashing of teeth from, the quickfire rage that sometimes lit up his veins and made holding onto his magic so much more difficult? Who did he inherit the malicious patience from, that he could hear Fortune's request, and no matter how he abhorred the idea, he could also begin forming a plan to bring the reward to fruition?

(He didn't have to actually hurt them. Humiliation stung, but it wouldn't actually harm them - they would likely forget his scheme in a few days, if not a few hours. 

It will be worth it to gain Fortune's favor. She'll give him the ability to better control his magic, won't she? Then he'll be less of a danger to others, his magic won't be out of control any more. He might actually be able to find someone who will remove it permanently, not just contain it, if he can actually be around other people.

He just had to be cruel to one person, to save others. It would be worth it, right?)

His tail twitches behind him: left, right, left, before curling around one of his legs in an absentminded display of his anxiety, his emotions worn plainly on his sleeve even when he's trying to keep them from showing on his face. Thankfully, despite the relative emptiness that is the late-morning breakfast rush, no one notices the teenage boy hiding in one of the shadowy corners with a hood pulled over his curly red hair, his eyes darting from face-to-face in an attempt to ascertain the appropriate target among the gathered mages.

The feeling of magic piled into the room makes his skin crawl, and he can't help but keep glancing at his hands to make sure that it isn't coming from him, that the tattoos aren't lighting up with the effort to restrain his own power. It’s a constant feeling within the Jug, with residue magic swept into corners and tingling at his fingertips, as if to coax his own magic into appearing.

His nerves crumble suddenly with the force of a landslide as he looks amongst the unfamiliar faces, the sounds of quiet conversation slowly melting into a staccato buzzing noise that drowns out everything else. The figures seated around the room blur, shadows drawing in until the only thing he can make out is the door across the room that led upstairs, to the inn’s rooms - and to the safety of isolation, as he feels the briefest ignition of flames lick across the palm of his hands before the tattoos light up a beacon of warning. 

He doesn’t remember crossing the room. When he blinks again, he’s standing in a doorframe, watching a girl he barely recognizes hum and waltz around a room with a broom, unaware of his presence. She looks so light, so carefree, with dust motes swirling around her in the sunlight, and he burns with jealousy, that she can be so at peace when he’s smoldering apart at the seams.

He shifts his weight without thinking, tail shifting behind him as a counterbalance to the half-crouch he falls into, and when her back is turned to him he creeps forward into the room, his eyes focused on a chair pushed back out of the way. It’s easy enough to move the chair without the girl noticing, careful to keep it from dragging against the floor as he sets it in her path, and he’s made it back into the doorframe by the time she turns around, still lost in her own world.

A vicious sense of joy curls in his stomach as he watches her trip over the chair, brought swiftly back to earth from her daydreams, and the flames roiling beneath his skin seem to settle for a moment, satisfied in his cruelty.

Their eyes meet, and the feeling in his stomach curdles into regret, the taste of bile heavy on his tongue.